


Dancing

by WahlBuilder



Category: The Technomancer (Video Game)
Genre: Dirty Talk, Dom/sub Undertones, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M, Nipple Piercings, Piercings, Porn with Feelings, set Abundance on fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 15:04:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21210527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: A mid-day sleep for Dandolo and an afternoon nap for Melvin, shared in one bed, are a usual occurence in their lives now, sometimes leading to more... active things. But some scars run deep.





	Dancing

**Author's Note:**

> Smut is a wonderful gift, and I'm giving it to myself.

Melvin is a handsome man. It is not that Dandolo is unobjective—he doesn’t deny the fact—but it is also indisputable. Dandolo likes watching Melvin move, likes listening to him talk. They talk a lot and share silence just as often. Dandolo likes Melvin’s presence, he can feel it even on the busy balcony among other people.

Dandolo isn’t about to be ashamed for enjoying Melvin’s company, but he does experience twinges of uncertainty for being glad that Melvin has found his way to Noctis. After all, it is desperation, fear, pain and mortal danger that have brought Melvin here.

The first days, weeks were disastrous, to put it mildly—but right now they have worked to something… Dandolo doesn’t know what, only knows that he doesn’t want Melvin to disappear. When Melvin goes to the Valley, Dandolo… He would never admit it aloud, but he has to agree with his friends when they say that he is restless and pining while Melvin is away. There is a heavy and yet sharp _lack_ when Melvin is away. What if he weighs down everything, measures Noctis and Dandolo against his own convictions, fears, aches, nightmares and his family, and decides he cannot return? Of course Dandolo wouldn’t keep him against his will. Dandolo would be grateful for long hours spent together, even the eye-opening fights—and yet in his heart he wouldn’t be able to let go. He never could. That ache persists. One day, one day—his heart weeps.

He doesn’t know _what_ they are, right now—only knows that they _are_. Melvin trains with the Guard and Dandolo himself, wanders the winding passages of the city without the fear of getting lost anymore but still looking uneasy when he ends up higher than the third level… Watches over Dandolo’s sleep.

They should be already set in their ways, at their respective ages,—but Dandolo was born in a caravan, belonging to the shifting plains and sands and winds even before he belonged to the city, and Melvin never had the freedom to find his own ways. They dance together, learning each other. It is exciting even though it is terrifying also.

Sometimes, they share a bed. Lately, it has been all the time—that is, whenever at least one of them wants to sleep. Melvin admitted he has become appreciative of the _pixolotto_, even though it is not Dandolo’s deep caravaner mid-day sleep that starts earlier than the city-wide nap and lasts longer. But they overlap, and Dandolo wakes up from his three hours not to Melvin sitting at the foot of the bed with a book, but to Melvin’s hair tickling his nose.

Dandolo pulls back slightly, but doesn’t get up. The drapes allow some light into their alcove, and Dandolo takes the opportunity to shamelessly admire his friend, his companion, his lover. His love, whatever may come in the future.

Melvin still wears the greys most of the time, although sometimes there is the azure tunic over them, or sandals instead of heavy boots, and kohl on his eyes to protect them from sunlight and heat. He isn’t uniformly monochrome anymore himself: the unhealthy paleness is gone, and his skin has a lovely golden glow, his hair a copper tinge. Melvin said he had thought it impossible to restore, but Dandolo thinks it has never gone away completely, it is rather that Ophir’s ungentle lighting, too bright and cold, made it appear like Melvin has gone entirely grey.

There are also freckles.

Dandolo can see a set right now, while Melvin is on his back, his head turned to one shoulder. There are freckles running over the shell of his ear, the one that is pierced, and there is a whole constellation on one shoulder that peeks above the blankets, clustered near an old scar.

Melvin is beautiful, and Dandolo wants him.

‘I know you want to kiss me,’ Melvin murmurs, a little slurred. He used to come awake immediately at the slightest change in background noise, and now, sometimes, he wakes up slowly. Dandolo counts it as another move learnt successfully in their dance.

He leans closer. ‘May I?’

‘Mm. Yes.’

He kisses that shoulder right over the scar. The flesh is textured roughly under his lips. ‘You are wonderful.’

‘Am not.’

There are all manner of responses to this. Dandolo swallows his sadness and kisses the angle of Melvin’s jaw. He doesn’t insist—it would lead them nowhere but, perhaps, a souring of this slow afternoon. He doesn’t want that, and he doesn’t think Melvin wants it either. He’d rather kiss Melvin more, on one of the deep lines at his mouth.

Melvin shifts, opening to him. It is so subtle, yet Dandolo feels it with his whole body—this shift and the need in Melvin. It is heady.

He wants to erase that feeling of inadequacy out of Melvin and put in the handsome truth of him instead—but putting his thoughts into heads of others never worked and it is what has been done to Melvin too many times. They will continue the dance instead. Growing, learning. Loving.

He presses a kiss, as tender as he can make it, to Melvin’s mouth. Melvin’s lips glow brightly when Melvin bites them to keep quiet in times of passion. Dandolo kisses his chin next. He imagines sometimes, in moments of idleness, between sleep and waking, what certain tattoos would look like on Melvin’s chin. Foolish, wishful thinking.

This close, he can hear how Melvin’s breathing becomes quicker.

He smiles, pulls back and props himself on a forearm, then hooks a finger under the blankets and moves them slowly down. Melvin stays utterly still—if not for the rise and fall of his chest. This is a permission, to.

Dandolo draws his fingers over the farther shoulder, outlining muscles and bones, runs over the clavicles, feeling their fragility.

Then flicks his nails over the bar in Melvin’s left nipple.

Melvin sucks in a breath.

Dandolo smiles again. Their time together is filled with many surprises and revelations: how different they are, how alike… Melvin’s mesmerised astonishment at the tattoos on his thighs. Dandolo’s own wonderment at this. A bit of rebellion, perhaps, an attempt to claim his body back. Dandolo supposes some people might find Melvin unapproachable and even boring—Melvin considers himself quite average, if not less than that. But in truth he is fierce, angry, burning. Fascinating.

Dandolo finds him amazing.

He closes his fingers on the bar and tugs slightly and watches as the nub of Melvin’s nipple stiffens. Watches as Melvin shifts just slightly under the blankets, listens to how his breath hitches. How his throat works trying to contain a moan, watches how he bites his lips. Eyes closed.

‘You know,’ Dandolo purrs, ‘Master Melvin, I think we should get you a matching piercing on the other nipple.’ He runs a fingertip from the one he’s been abusing to the other, hard, too, and dark. He rubs the pad of his thumb over it mercilessly, and his efforts are reward with a squirm. ‘Although maybe switch both of them to rings. Something for me to handle you with easily.’

Melvin arches up, the blankets sliding lower, uncovering the muscles flexing in his arms. He must be clawing at the bedsheets.

‘And add a lovely chain,’ Dandolo continues. His own desire is heavy, hot like the afternoon heat, but he knows Melvin likes being denied, and Dandolo himself likes denying him. Likes being in control of Melvin’s pleasure, since Melvin is so adept at depriving himself of it entirely.

Dandolo runs the thumbnail down Melvin’s sternum, pushing the blankets even lower. ‘And another chain to attach to the one between the rings. I have an idea where I want that particular chain to end.’ He scrapes the short hairs running down Melvin’s underbelly, pushes the blankets down to the middle of Melvin’s thighs. ‘I— Hands to the bed, Melvin,’ he commands.

It is heady, watching Melvin obey, watching him dig his fingers into the mattress so that his knuckles turn white. His cock, in contrast, is flushed dark, gorgeous and wet at the tip. Dandolo thumbs at the head, smearing that wetness over the crown. ‘Here. I’d attach it to a piece here, a ring also, running through the slit…’ He presses briefly to the opening, and Melvin chokes out a curse. ‘And through here,’ he rubs just under the head, and Melvin _whimpers_. His body is writhing, arching up into Dandolo’s touch and then away, down into the mattress, up and away. Like a wave. He’s so beautiful.

‘And then add a row of bars down the shaft, on the underside,’ Dandolo continues, his hand travelling just where he indicates, then brushes the sack and moves lower. ‘And then, something here…’ He presses his thumb to the perineum.

Melvin arches off the bed and comes.

He shudders through it, thighs trembling, half-words falling off his lips. Dandolo strokes his thighs lightly, feeling the pressure and the tingling metallic taste of Melvin’s charge, until Melvin relaxes, sinking into the bed.

Dandolo wonders in astonishment whether it has been his voice, his touches or the pictures he was painting. Maybe everything at once.

He kisses Melvin’s shoulder again, the one with the scar, wipes his stomach with the corner of a sheet.

Melvin’s breathing slows down—and then he rolls onto his side.

Facing away from Dandolo.

This isn’t new either. Melvin can be delightfully greedy and unashamed in his pleasure, their desires aligned perfectly—but sometimes, it goes like this. Perhaps Melvin feels vulnerable, less. He said once that he felt dirty—not as a result of what they did, but as an inherent quality of himself. As much as hearing it, watching it, _knowing_ it pains Dandolo, arguing is futile. He can only prove again and again that it is not so. That Melvin isn’t filthy. That he is worth touching and giving pleasure to.

Dandolo pulls the blankets over Melvin again, shielding him at least in this way, and lays down behind him, not pressing close but allowing Melvin to feel his presence.

‘And you?’ Melvin’s voice is roughened—maybe by the pleasure, or maybe by the weight of his pains.

Dandolo wants. Right now—it is both abstract and very concrete. And, frankly, all the time: the sight of Melvin’s fingers curling on a pencil sends a surge through him, making him want to bring Melvin’s hands to his lips; Melvin’s stride when they walk down the stairs hugging to the canyon wall makes Dandolo want to push him to the same wall and hook one of Melvin’s legs over his hip. Dandolo wanted other people, before, but never this intensely, insistently, all the time. Though, he’s never been in love, before.

He cups Melvin’s shoulder over the blankets without adding too much pressure. ‘I’m all right, _corvo_. We can continue later.’

‘Do you have to go now?’ There is more naked vulnerability in these words, and Dandolo aches.

‘No. I don’t have to.’

After a moment, Melvin uncurls—just slightly, the shift concealed by the piles of blankets and sheets, but Dandolo notices.

He moves to his beloved, presses to him from behind in the heat of the blankets, Melvin’s skin hot to the touch as ever. Dandolo kisses his shoulder again, wraps an arm around him, and they lace their fingers as he rests his hand against Melvin’s heart, beating the rhythm of his life.

‘Dandolo?’

‘Yes?’

‘Are there piercing masters here?’

He chuckles, curling tighter around Melvin. ‘Let’s scandalise Equanimity.’

Melvin is silent—then starts laughing quietly, and Dandolo can’t not join him, holding him in his arms.


End file.
